


Monastic (Dis)Orders

by lynndyre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M, Monks, Trickster-Induced Deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 15:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Samuel and Dean answer Sheriff Robert's summons to investigate the abbey and town of Aberstoft, and Brother Gabriel is a very earthly monk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monastic (Dis)Orders

Samuel returned to the scriptorium after Nones, to the desk where his pens and inks stood exactly as he'd left them. The vellum onto which he was recopying Psalms, however, was somewhat altered by the addition of creative marginalia in the form of a bird with its beak inserted into the arse of an improbably satisfied looking man. Sam scowled, looked around to verify the absence of his current superior, Brother Osmund the Cantor, and hissed angrily under his breath.

"Brother Gabriel!" A smug face under a windblown brown tonsure appeared briefly around the far doorway, before winking far more lewdly than any man sworn to the cloth should have know how and disappearing again. Sam slid the offending page beneath the others and hoped he would be able to finish his research and be away from the abbey before Brother Osmund had cause to happen upon it. 

Sam and his brother had come to Aberstoft at the request of the sheriff. Robert Singer was appointed by the king, on tenuously friendly terms with the abbey, and a force to be reckoned with. He was also a man of learning, and more adept than most lay men in this modern age, more than twelve centuries since the birth of Christ, at recognising the works of the devil in all his forms. And at defeating them. When two poachers and deserters had been found dead in the forest, butchered as thoroughly as the venison and mutton they'd sought, the under-Sheriff had sought to blame leopards, as though they might have crawled forth across the land from the fabric of a war-standard. Robert had examined the depth of unnatural claw marks, and written to the Winchesters.

Between the sending of Robert's summons and the Winchesters' arrival, the wife of a local farmer had spent a fortnight unable to speak, and when she recovered swore that the Little People had punished her for lying. Two days before Chevrolet's hooves struck the dust of the abbey forecourt one Ramsay innkeeper had vanished entire, from before the eyes of wife and daughter both. Neither woman, bruised as they were, had the means to effect such a removal, though there was a tentative hope in the idea he might not return.

Robert first took Samuel and Dean to the clearing where the poachers had been found, dark stains already nearly disappearing into the loam. Yet all three incidents were unlike each other, in both targeting and effect, and wide though the span of the sheriff's library was, that of the abbey surpassed it entire. And thus Sam found himself in his present situation.

The plan had been simple, infiltrate the Abbey as a lay brother, and gain access to the texts within its library's walls. Find out what manner of creature plagued the town, and dispose of it. Yet for days Sam had bent his head over the lectern, and slept in snatches between Matins and Lauds and sneaking into the library with his tiny Arabian brass lamp. And avoiding Brother Gabriel, who seemed set to break nearly every tenet of the monastic life, but always just out of sight of the prior or the abbot. 

For the most part, Sam was no more inclined than the next man to object to an obviously purloined pot of honey being passed beneath the refectory tables, or to irreverent assessments of the virtues or otherwise of various members of the parish when they attended services. The gossip at least was useful, he and Dean didn't know the town well enough to ask all the right questions as yet, and Brother Gabriel was a veritable fount of information on seemingly everyone. Sam could see why he'd chosen the name of God's messenger.

But Gabriel's attentions didn't end at honey and mead and berries and talk. He was often impossible to find when Sam went looking, but appeared as though from the earth itself whenever Sam sought a moment alone, or thought to pursue his investigation of the creature plaguing the town. And, after days of telling himself he was imagining things, projecting the evils of the world on those supposedly outside its reach, Sam had to admit that his idealised view of the monastic life was just that, and that Brother Gabriel really was as interested as he appeared to be in pursuing carnal relations with Sam himself.

Sam had had his share of tumbles in haystacks, in the dusty warmth of a barn, in the back rooms of inns. Still, if he was honest, dreamt sometimes of Jess in the orchard, surrounded by the sweet smell of ripe and fallen apples. He knew what men might do together, suspected his brother might have done rather more than he ever admitted to. But all of Sam's romances had been just that, something sweet, close to the courtly ideal as they could be said to be while attaining consummation.

Brother Gabriel was nothing resembling to a courtly ideal, and even further distant from a monastic one. He was banned from conducting readings with the novices, after allegedly near-pornographic recitals of the Old Testament. Sam had no trouble giving the story credence. Gabriel had spent half an hour one afternoon whispering the story of David and Jonathan across the writing table, and Sam had been unable to stand up afterwards without disgracing himself. 

When called upon, Gabriel could recite forth seemingly any piece of scripture from memory. Privately, Sam wondered if he'd been trained as a bard, but asking a brother's life before the cloth was forbidden, and the disinclination towards such questions was part of the cover Sam was relying on himself. And so protected from enquiry, Gabriel continued to twine himself about Sam's monastic existence, warm fingers digging into the tensed muscles of his neck and shoulders, breath hot against Sam's ear whispering anything but prayer, clever hands sketching the strangest of carnalities across Sam's copywork and researches.

The admonishment that God was watching was met with strange, full-throated laughter. "We are always before God, Sammy, should He choose to be watching. He made us. Maybe he'd appreciate the show." Since the warning of celestial reparation had no effect, Samuel considered reporting to a more earthly authority. But in the silence of the prescribed hours of meditation, with only his own mind for company, he had to admit part of himself welcomed Gabriel's attentions. Even the most carnal of them.

He still had a mission, though. And a brother to return to- God alone knew what Dean would accomplish or bring upon himself in the town alone for so long.

***

At that particular moment, Dean was staring at the body of Ramsay the inkeeper, as it was tipped out onto the ground from its frothy resting place within the largest of the inn's stored casks of mead. He helped Robert disperse the gathering crowd, and stood back as the body was removed, bloated face lolling backwards in the sodden ugliness of death. Dean tried not to think about how much of the cask's contents might have already been drunk.

Hollis, the former cobbler, wrapped knotted hands about the top of his stick. "That's a judgment, that is. None in this town worse for drink than old Ramsay, when the mood hit him, and there's those as say his daughter weren't safe to stay there unwed."

"God does not judge man by drowning drunkards in mead." The speaker wore the dusty tan of a pilgrim, and had a Welsh look, blue eyes under near black hair.

Hollis shrugged expansively. "The devil taking back his own, then. There's no way Ramsay got hisself into that cask and sealed it again. And no way a man did it either, for it wasn't breached. Something unnatural is what done for him." Sheriff Robert put a hand to the old man's shoulder, and steered him firmly away.

Old Hollis was right in one thing though, the cask hadn't been breached and resealed, certainly not enough for a man of Ramsay's considerable girth. That much Dean had managed to check for himself, the cask was oak, and impossible to have opened so far as to insert a man without showing it. Further, the amount of mead that would have been displaced by Ramsay's body was substantial, but the cellar floor had no more dampness than that of normal earth, and no trace of the insects that would have been drawn to the fermented honey, had such a quantity of it been spilt there.

"I am seeking the judgment of God." The dark-haired pilgrim must have followed him back into the half-lit cellar.

"Good for you, I'm seeking half a cask of disappearing mead."

"You are a righteous man, Dean of Winchester. Perhaps we may aid each other." The pilgrim tilted his head to one side, and suddenly gave the impression of a falcon. Not just a pilgrim, then. A soldier, probably a former crusader. That made the man a more dangerous unknown.

Castiel clasped Dean's hand, eyes staring as if into Dean's soul. Dean returned the grip. And every fraction of the intensity.

***

In the dying twilight after Vespers Sam made his way out beyond the drying shed to the edge of the herb garden, where the last of the summer's lazy bees were droning among the far weeds. Clouds were moving in, heavy and low. Brother Gabriel appeared as the shadows deepened, and sank down on the low bench beside him, expression for once entirely sober. 

"Brother Jonah is with the Infirmarian. Passed out entirely in the forecourt, and couldn't be roused for near ten minutes."

It took Sam a moment to place the name to a face, in his head the young oblate was a smile and constant movement, more suited to Gabriel's style of worship than the approved method. He had been given a penance of fasting by Prior Gifford for failing to pay proper respect, and for not yet having learnt to sleep sitting up during Matins the way many of the older Monks had.

"Our Brother Prior is overreaching himself. Joy before God should be held of greater value than soulless obedience, else why would man alone have been granted soul and will? What do you believe, Sam?"

Sam, preoccupied with wondering what was keeping Dean, simply nodded. Prior Gifford was not a man to value joy in any sense over obedience to himself, and Sam privately expected the man would be pleased to know he'd caused discomfort to those under his control.

"Perhaps you're right." Gabriel's voice was low. But Dean had appeared at the far side of the yard, a darker, shorter man beside him and Sam was already rising to greet them. When he turned back, Gabriel had gone.

***

There were no hex bags in the inn, none in the farmer's house whose wife had been mute. None of those afflicted, or their neighbors, had seen poppets, or strange animals, symbols, or anything to give clear sign of what it was they hunted. If it were neither witch nor summoning, what manner of creature would choose so many different means of attack?

Dean walked the length and breadth of town and forecourt. He hadn't the gifts Sam had, the way of dowsing for magic simply by feel, but he let his instincts draw him on nonetheless. The town felt strange, it was only near returning to Robert's house that he realized the town did not feel afraid. The normal aura of a place afflicted by a supernatural influence was one of disruption, fear, anger, suspicion. Aberstoft felt curious. As if it were waiting for something else. Dean found himself tensing further, also waiting. And then the rain started.

The stables loomed up before him in the darkness, and Dean ducked inside. The door slammed behind him, and a man started upwards from the ground, where the straw had been swept back from a wide circle, and occult symbols glistened with blood. Castiel's huge blue eyes met Dean's almost desperately, even as his fingers still dripped crimson.

Dean slammed Castiel back against the stall door, Chevrolet huge and imposing at his back. "You bastard!" Dean hissed through his teeth. "You didn't come from Ghyllcullen. The wool merchants would have met you on the road, and even if not, you'd have passed the leper colony at St Michael's - all they do is watch for travelers! Who are you really?"

All expression vanished from Castiel's face as though swept by the tide, and the lightning flashed outside, bright through every chink in the walls. Thunder crashed down, and Dean stumbled back from the shadows of huge wings, stretched across the walls of the stable. Chevrolet whinnied and reared, and the huge grey in the furthest stall stamped and screamed.

"I am an angel of the Lord."

***

The town's tormentor turned its attentions on Prior Gifford the next day. In the crowded dining hall, Gabriel gave the day's reading, while Sam ate with the other lay brothers. Then sudden exclamations overshadowed Gabriel's voice, and the whole of the abbey watched in horror while the fish turned to beetles in Gifford's mouth, and the bread to rats. He gave a gurgling cry and fell choking to the paving stones before the high table, throat filled with vermin.

Brother Martin screamed, the Father Abbot waved his hands, ordering all the brothers back, and away. The ritual silence of the dining hall was drowned out in hushed whispering and frantic prayers. Sam allowed himself to be herded back to his table, but his eyes sought out Brother Gabriel, who stood perfectly still at the lectern and watched the Infirmarian do his work. The light of the high table's candles caught and glinted in Gabriel's eyes, and Sam realised he'd been a fool. What he'd hunted had been beside him all the time.

***

They held council around Robert's hearth, fire spitting sparks, turning the shadows darker than before. Sam recounted the Prior's supper, and his suspicions as to the culprit. Dean told them about the barn, about an angel on a quest, about a pilgrim named James Novus who had prayed to the Thursday morning sky and been answered.

Robert steepled his fingers and frowned at them both. "Angel or whatever else, the fact is this Castiel didn't arrive in Aberstoft until after you two did. That's a long time to be hiding in the woods, if he were the one we're after."

"He said he came here seeking the judgment of God."

"This thing, whether it's your monk or not, it has been judging people. Falsehood punished with silence, butchery with being butchered."

"Drunken beatings with drowning in mead?" Dean's voice was flippant, but his eyes were not. Sam was frowning.

"It doesn't matter. It's hurting people. We're hunters. It's what we do."

***

Sam stood at his full height, sword in hand, and still felt small in front of Gabriel. He leveled the blade. "You are the one who has been tormenting this town. Killing those men."

Gabriel folded his hands into the sleeves of his robes. "Am I, Sammy? Don't think much of me, do you? Or maybe you're thinking too much of them, if you really want to keep people like that around to make the world a worse place for everyone else."

"Their fates aren't yours to decide!" Dean snarled, and his sword joined Sam's in pointing straight for the small monk's chest.

"But my fate is yours?" Gabriel's eyes flashed, and his hand moved within his sleeve, and a giant figure appeared, swinging a mace as if straight out of a bard's epic. Dean spun awkwardly, and dodged backwards, trying to block without allowing the mace to catch his sword full on and shatter the blade.

Sam cried out, torn between aiding Dean and keeping Gabriel cornered. His eyes followed the swing of the giant's mace, and when he turned again Gabriel was inside his guard, only inches from his face.

"I'm disappointed in you, Sammy. I thought you'd get it, you know. It's so hard to find them smart and pretty." Those familiar fingers traced over his neck once more, threaded through the hair at his nape. "I'm sorry it went this way."

Sam drew back his sword, ready to strike-

And behind him, the rampaging northern giant fell insensible to the ground.

"Brother. I have been looking for you."

Dean lay sprawled where the giant had thrown him, staring up at his rescuer.

"You were one of those closest to God. I had hoped you had seen him."

Dean sputtered, sword still hanging loose in his hand. "Wait a minute. Angels don't know how to find God?"

Sam couldn't breathe. "Gabriel the _Archangel_?"

"And I suppose you always knew where your father was? No? Then shut it." Gabriel seemed angrier now than when facing a sword at his throat. "So why was little brother looking for Daddy?"

Castiel opened his mouth to reply, but Gabriel gestured and cut him off. "Elsewhere." He turned back to the Winchesters, eyes narrowed. "Sorry we didn't finish playing out my death scene, but I'm sure you can fill in the rest. The town is saved, the heroes ride off to a new quest, go on, have a great time, think of us when you practice onanism, see you around."

The angels vanished. Sam felt the beat of the air under many wings, and Dean closed his eyes against the stroke of invisible feathers across his cheek. 

It was a long moment before Dean pushed himself up from the ground, and clapped his hand to Sam's biceps. They returned to Robert's house in silence. Defeated or no, the creature they'd come to hunt was gone, and it was time to find the road again.

Robert hugged them both in parting, and pressed an empty book into Sam's hands and a flask into Dean's. That night Sam stared at the pages in the firelight, and could find no words to write. He shared Dean's wine instead. It was weeks, an unquiet ghost, and a werewolf before he reached for the journal again.

The inside cover was a mess of drawings. Trees, burning arrows, a naked woman with scarves. Sam's eyes reached the bottom of the page, and he burst out laughing. It was the man with the bird up his arse, bent over and grinning up from the vellum.

Sam found he looked forward to being distracted from his writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Drawings of the sort mentioned in this fic are actual marginalia that exist in real medieval manuscripts - even the man with the bird.


End file.
